Michael Anderson from Niemanlab.org reports:
In the two months since Ann Arbor became the nation’s newest no-newspaper town, there’s been lots of talk about its status as ground zero for the new ecosystem of Web-native niche outlets. But I wanted to know: In a business that’s always been oiled by routine — midnight press runs, 6 a.m. broadcasts, 11 a.m. news meetings, 6:30 deadlines — how will tomorrow’s hyperlocal news professionals structure their day? So, a few weeks after the Ann Arbor News folded, I spent a morning with its most established successor, the one-year-old, online-only Ann Arbor Chronicle, to get a sense for the future of the newsroom routine.
Anderson’s story paints a vivid picture of entrepreneurship in news delivery, at least on the editorial side of the operation. I’d love to hear more about the business side of the venture. How much revenue are these sites generating per view or per user? How can they increase revenue? Are they experimenting with selling their ad inventory through ad networks that offer personalized (“behaviorally targeted”) ads to increase revenue? What do they think of Google’s new micropayments venture?
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